To the Questions of the International Legal Personality of Subnational Entities in the International Financial Legal Order

Abstract

The article analyzes the doctrinal approaches to the concept of the “subject of international law” and the criteria for their separation from other legal entities involved in the financial relations with a foreign element. The basic international documents and legal acts of foreign countries that regulate at the national level the legal status of communities of administrative-territorial units as the subjects of local self-government and give the right to enter into cross-border contractual relations are investigated. Exploring the forms of cooperation of subnational individuals at the regional and universal levels, they distinguish between such forms of network cooperation as infrastructure, which are factors of international legal regulation (aimed at economic solidarity) and political, in which cities are often agents of international intergovernmental organizations. Based on the analysis of international documents and national legal acts regulating the legal status of subnational persons and their relations with subjects of international law, as well as domestic and foreign doctrine of international legal personality, a scientific approach to the status of subnational persons in financial relations with a foreign element is formulated. Administrative-territorial units as complementary subjects of international legal relations with a special international legal personality are defined: on the formal legal plane, they are endowed with rights in foreign economic activity with legal norms of national law, which govern these relations; similarly, city states (like other subnationals) are representatives of the public interest of urban communities; in the economically practical plane, they act as independent subjects of economic relations of an international character.